I.4A Generate Positions of Power During Active Labor and Delivery

Monitoring of inflammation in the airways is important for determining response to therapies in children with various forms of acute and chronic respiratory diseases. Traditionally, physicians rely on expectorated sputum or other airway fluids (bronchoalveolar lavage) to screen for infectious pathogens. But young children are unable to expectorate sputum and performing bronchoscopy for collecting bronchoalveolar lavage is too invasive and therefore cannot be done routinely. Hence, there is an unmet clinical need for non-invasive airway sampling techniques that can provide samples for testing for infection and inflammation in pediatric patients with chronic lung or sino-nasal conditions. 

The Nozebot® is a nasal suction device that has been developed to allow for portable and effective removal of nasal secretions from young children without requiring additional medical equipment or training. It can be used at home by parents of children suffering from acute or chronic lung conditions. This device is easy to operate and maintain, but it does not allow for the collection of the aspirated material for clinical testing or for research. More details regarding this device can be found on the website: https://drnozebest.com/

The goal of this project is to develop a specialized adapter for the Nozebot® device to allow for the collection of nasal secretions in pediatric patients at home and send the collected samples for clinical testing or for research applications. This adapter will use the same suction tip that is part of the Nozebot device but will add a receptacle for collecting the sample in a sterile manner without causing any environmental contamination. After nasal sample collection is completed, this receptacle should be detachable, so it can be removed and closed with a cap to ship to the laboratory for testing of the nasal secretions. The development of this adapter will improve upon the nasal aspiration technique to allow for collection of nasal secretions at home across all age groups for the purpose of clinical testing and for research applications. This will reduce trips to the clinic for collection of patient samples and allow for remote monitoring of patients with chronic respiratory or sino-nasal disorders.